'Crafty Bastards' author featured at craft beer celebration

Tuesday

Jul 22, 2014 at 11:59 AMJul 23, 2014 at 11:07 AM

Lauren Clark will be Celebrating Brew Day Saturday at Partners Village Store

Linda Murphy Lifestyle Editor @HNFastFood

The craft beer renaissance is in full swing, once again. But in New England, the tradition of beer making dates all the way back to the Pilgrims, according to Lauren Clark, author of “Crafty Bastards.”

Clark will be part of a celebration of craft beer this Saturday at Partners Village Store in Westport. Celebrating Brew Day with “Crafty Bastards” will also feature samples of beers from Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project, a contract brewer that works out of the Buzzards Bay Brewery in Wesport; “Good Brew Hunting” columnist Nate Burns; and Partners Village Store co-owner Nancy Crosby, who was at the forefront of craft beer making in the 1970s. Back then, she ran Crosby & Baker with Pat Baker, selling products for beer making and wine making.

A journalist, brewer and former bartender, “Crafty Bastards” author Clark first got into craft beers at the Cambridge Brewing Co., in 1997. Her experience writing about beer, as well as wine and spirits, also includes the drinkboston.com blog that she operated from 2006 to 2011 before moving to California.

In 2012, in the midst of a whole new wave of craft brewers in New England and across the country, Clark decided to research the history of craft brew making in New England, resulting in the recently published book.

The latest wave of craft brewers is the result, in part, of people in their 20s and 30s who grew up with craft beers — but it all started with the Pilgrims, who landed in Plymouth because their beer supply aboard the Mayflower was diminishing, said Clark. And surprisingly, the Puritans were also beer drinkers.

“Another thing that surprised me was that the women did the brewing and the kids drank the beer, too. They would make a weak table beer and a stronger beer,” said Clark in a recent phone interview.

The beer the early settlers brewed in New England would be what today is considered to be an ale, which remained popular in New England up to Prohibition in 1920 and after it was repealed in 1933. “This region is unique for that — the rest of the country switched to lager,” she said attributing New Englanders’ taste for ale to the area’s heavy lineage to England and Ireland.

Another little known fact that may interest craft beer enthusiasts is that New England was a major hops-producing region in the 1700s and 1800s. Hops production eventually moved to New York and then out west to vast open spaces and the more preferable climate in the Pacific Northwest. “Hops are a little like grapes, and grapes grow really well out there,” she said.

But there’s a renewed interest in growing hops in New England as part of the whole craft brew renaissance and local/artisanal food movement. There’s a hops farm in Maine and another affiliated with the University of Vermont.

“Part of it is that we have a new generation of beer drinkers who came of age knowing what craft beer is,” said Clark of the craft brew renaissance, which has led to about 200 craft brewers in New England. “They’ve always known what craft beer was. Before that, brewers had to educate people.”

And the generation that grew up with craft beers has pioneers like Crosby to thank for the craft beer renaissance that started in the 1970s with companies like Crosby & Baker, she said.

“She and Pat Baker started one of the first home brew supply companies in the country,” said Clark, adding the two who were also instrumental in home brewing becoming legal in Massachusetts in the 1970s.

Celebrating Brew Day with “Crafty Bastards” at Partners Village Store will be held from 4 to 6 p.m., Saturday, July 26 at 865 Main Road, Westport. To RSVP, call Partners to reserve a seat for the event at 508-636-2572. “Crafty Bastards,” published by Union Park Press, is for sale at Partners and other booksellers.